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The Origin Story 563 Views
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Description:
Every culture has some idea about where we all came from. Surprisingly, very few of them hypothesize that we are all simply figments of Lady Gaga’s imagination.
Transcript
- 00:04
The Origin Story, a la Shmoop. <<Movie trailer voice>>
- 00:07
In a world…
- 00:08
…where the ambassadors of good struggle to overcome the forces of evil…
- 00:14
…there is one individual who has sworn to protect the citizens of Earth at all costs…
- 00:21
…you. <<End movie trailer voice>>
Full Transcript
- 00:23
Sure. Why not? We’re using our imaginations anyway, right?
- 00:26
So begins… just about any superhero backstory.
- 00:30
And you’ll find similar set-ups in tales describing how powerful gods got their start…
- 00:35
...or how the planets or universe were formed…
- 00:39
…or how Bill Gates built his empire. It is human nature to question how the great
- 00:45
and powerful came to be.
- 00:47
Whether we’re dealing with fiction or otherwise. We call these tales “Origin stories,”
- 00:53
or “creation myths.”
- 00:54
These stories help explain where we came from…
- 00:57
…and maybe even where we’re going.
- 00:59
As individuals… or as a society. It’s a universal human trait to wonder abou[1][2]t
- 01:04
our origin…
- 01:04
…which is why we wish you good luck finding a culture anywhere in the world that hasn’t
- 01:09
taken a stab at it. Of course, people often have a tough time
- 01:13
taking the stories of other cultures seriously.
- 01:15
“Really? A god who shoots lightning bolts out of his hands? Whatever. I’ll just be
- 01:21
over here, believing the world was created on the back of a turtle, like any normal person.”
- 01:26
There are some pretty wild stories out there, it’s true…
- 01:29
…but some cultures treat them as metaphorical or symbolic representations of real-world
- 01:34
stuff.[3]
- 01:35
There may not literally be some guy who flies around in a diaper shooting arrows into the
- 01:39
buttocks of would-be lovers…
- 01:40
…but there seems to be some magic inherent in the idea of two people falling in love
- 01:45
with each other.
- 01:46
A character like Cupid is an attempt to explain that magic.
- 01:50
The creation story you’re probably most familiar with is the one detailed in Genesis…
- 01:55
…that points to a worldview in which human beings have a special relationship to one
- 01:59
God…
- 02:00
…and are given dominion over the world.
- 02:02
Although, if he was going to leave us in charge, it sure would have been nice if he had shown
- 02:03
us how to adjust the thermostat first. Then there’s the Greek creation myth…
- 02:05
…where the world is born out of chaos. That’s right… it used to be a big, fat Greek nothing.
- 02:08
But once the world was formed[4] and chaos was defeated, order and structure became really
- 02:13
important.
- 02:14
Which might explain why each Greek god has special dominion over a particular aspect
- 02:18
of life on Earth.
- 02:19
These guys were big on organization. You should have seen their sock drawers.
- 02:20
Some Native Americans [5]have their own origin story…
- 02:22
…about a guy diving into the ocean and finding the material he could use to build land.
- 02:26
Apparently, he didn’t trust his contractor.
- 02:29
Their story not only explains why land is surrounded by water…
- 02:32
…but suggests that Native American saw themselves as a culture constructed amidst a wide wilderness.
- 02:38
They’re like “this” with Mother Nature. And, as we mentioned, superheroes get their
- 02:40
own origin stories.
- 02:42
Would Bruce Wayne have been so committed to helping people if he hadn’t had such a tough
- 02:46
childhood?
- 02:46
You know… as tough as it can be when you live in a mansion and have your own butler?
- 02:47
There are many different ways to interpret these myths…
- 02:49
…but all of them are attempting to say something profound about the organization of the world…
- 02:54
…and the relationship between the world and the people who inhabit it.
- 02:59
Whether or not they like to put on masks in the evening hours and kick some bad guy butt.
- 03:03
[1]his is confusing because we could understand "our origin is universal" as the entire object
- 03:04
of "know," as in "the desire to know that our origin is universal" which is not what
- 03:05
you mean [2]
- 03:05
[3]I'm not sure that cultures treat their own myths as metaphorical, but rather that
- 03:05
we must think of them as such (and that there are actually symbolic kernels in all of them)
- 03:05
[4]Maybe add "And chaos was defeated" or something like that
- 03:06
Fun fact: Chaos was an actual guy, apparently [5]Some Native American groups (they're all
- 03:06
so different)
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